Hey,

I'm working on a 01 Sunfire with a 2.2, auto, 130k miles, headgasket replaced at 100k miles. It gets regular oil changes every 3k miles, but not much else unless it makes a noise, or causes a no start. I did brakes on it 8k miles ago, and a battery about 2 years ago.

The car (over the course of a few weeks) has been getting harder and harder to start. It now will not start unless given about 1/4 throttle. It smells like gas when initially started and during the first few min of running. MPG's are down, unknown hx of mpgs, other then "it's using almost twice as much gas" from the owner (17 year old girl, my mothers best friends daughter...) There is no CEL, and no stored codes. I have done no further testing. It does this on the first start of the day, or after sitting for about an hour.

I plan on replacing the spark plugs, wires, and air filter without looking at it, and testing the fuel pressure if the problem continues. I suspect that one of the injectors is leaking, but I am unsure. It runs fine after a min or less of ideling, and the owner doesnt think it's down on power. I've driven it, and it doesnt seem to miss, but it feels down on power to me. I'll post a 0-60 time if applicable, but I dont think it would help anything.


Does it sound like I'm on the right track?
Is this a common problem?
What is baseline fuel pressure for an 01 sunfire?
Are there any other vehicles that use the same injectors as a sunfire? (anything with a 2.2, correct? No sunfires in the salvage yard by me)
Thank you!
~Nate

I would guess to say that it may only be an o ring that got tore while replacing the head gasket. I had a celica that had the same problem. it ran great and all but smelled like gas and was slightly low on power...the good news is the gas sure cleaned up the oil that had leaked on the block =P